(UPDATED) The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday, July 19, 2021, confirmed that two died out of the 11 local Delta variant cases, raising the death toll from this highly contagious coronavirus variant to three in the Philippines.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the mortalities were a 78-year-old female from Baybay, Antique, who died on May 30, and a 58-year-old female from Pandacan, Manila, who died on June 28.
The DOH initially confirmed the death only of the patient from Metro Manila when the first local cases of Delta were announced on Friday, July 16.
Read: Philippines detects first local cases of Delta variant
Vergeire said the patient from Antique was initially tagged as recovered, but the local government unit (LGU) later validated that the patient had died.
The first mortality with the Delta variant was a 63-year-old male returning overseas Filipino (ROF) from MV Athens, a foreign vessel with travel history to India that sought refuge in the Philippines after most of its Filipino crew contracted coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Read: Filipino seafarer with new virus variant dies
The three mortalities were among the 35 confirmed Covid-19 cases with the Delta variant in the Philippines.
Vergeire said the 32 other patients have been tagged as recovered. However, the nine local cases and the five ROFs who are among the 16 cases announced Friday are being reassessed and placed under quarantine again.
"All Delta variant cases are immediately reassessed to determine their current clinical, laboratory and isolation status. They shall be swabbed for repeat RT-PCR at end of their isolation or upon determination that they were positive for the Delta variant," Vergeire said.
"They shall remain in isolation while awaiting results. Those whose RT-PCR is negative, already asymptomatic, and have completed the minimum 10-day isolation may be discharged from isolation," she added.
Vergeire said they were also identifying close contacts with positive RT-PCR test results to determine which samples may be eligible for whole genome sequencing.
In the City of Manila, 36 individuals who came into contact with three Delta variant cases have been identified, Vergeire said quoting Manila City Mayor Francisco Domagoso on Monday.
She said they were still collating the results of contact tracing efforts in other areas.
"Ngunit masasabi po natin na mukhang nagwo-work na because we were able to identify, do'n po sa ating mga local cases, na meron pa hong aktibo pa rin at na-test na po natin sila and we were able to quarantine them already," she said.
The 11 local cases were among the 16 cases detected by the University of the Philippines Philippine Genome Center in its latest sequencing run.
Five cases were ROFs, bringing the total Delta cases involving ROFs to 24.
Of the 11 local cases, five belong to one family in Cagayan de Oro City in Northern Mindanao, one is from Misamis Oriental, two from Antique, two from Metro Manila and one from Central Luzon but tested in Metro Manila. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)